How many copies has SpaceChem sold?

indielist estimates SpaceChem has sold between 133,467 and 311,423 units (median 222,445), derived from its 2,617 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.

Who developed SpaceChem?

SpaceChem was developed by Zachtronics and published by Zachtronics.

Who published SpaceChem?

SpaceChem was published by Zachtronics, developed by Zachtronics. See Zachtronics's full catalogue and submission status on indielist.

When was SpaceChem released?

SpaceChem was released in 2011.

How many reviews does SpaceChem have on Steam?

SpaceChem has 2,617 Steam reviews, of which 92% are positive.

Is SpaceChem worth playing?

Steam players rate SpaceChem 92% positive across 2,617 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

SpaceChem

Mar 2, 2011 Indie $9.99

Developer Zachtronics Publisher Zachtronics

Profile updated Jun 2026

Puzzle and programming design drive SpaceChem, with difficult logic challenges as its core. Developed and published by Zachtronics in 2011, it has 5,069 Steam reviews at 92% positive and an initial price of $9.99.

SpaceChem is a 2011 Indie game developed by Zachtronics and published by Zachtronics. On Steam it has gathered 2,617 player reviews, 92% of them positive, which counts as a very positive reception among indie titles in the Indie category. The game is available on linux, mac, windows, and launched at $10. The pairing of developer Zachtronics with publisher Zachtronics is one of the studio-publisher relationships indielist tracks, letting players find comparable games and letting developers and investors study how Indie projects reach the market. indielist's white-box method estimates its lifetime sales at roughly 133,000 to 311,000 units, with the full Boxleiter factor breakdown shown on this page rather than a single black-box figure. Within indielist's catalog of indie games mapped to their studios, publishers, and funding, SpaceChem can be compared against similar Indie titles and benchmarked on review counts and estimated sales.

Reviews

2,617

Positive

92%

Steam appid

92800

Engine

Unknown

Players (snapshot)

Unavailable

Sales estimate

v1.0

133K to 311K

units (median: 222K)

≈ $762K to $1.8M modeled net revenue (fixed store-cut, refund, and regional-price assumptions applied)

133K median 311K

+ How is this calculated?

2,617 reviews × NB(85) = 222,445 median units

Factor	Adjustment
base	+50
year_2011	+30
price_$10	-5
positive_92%	+10
final NB	85

Heuristic display range: median × [0.6, 1.4]. Boundary protection: NB ∈ [15, 150].

Methodology & limitations

Sales estimates use an additive Boxleiter-derived heuristic against public Steam review counts. They are not authoritative sales data, and the fixed display range is not a statistically validated confidence interval. Actual results may fall outside it, especially for deeply discounted or bundle-heavy titles. Algorithm version v1.0. Read the exact method and validation status.

indielist estimates lifetime unit sales for SpaceChem at roughly 133,000 to 311,000 copies, with a median around 222,000, derived from its 2,617 Steam reviews using a multi-factor Boxleiter method (version v1.0). That median maps to approximately $1.3M in net revenue after Steam's 30% cut, regional pricing, and refunds. Unlike black-box trackers, the full calculation is shown on this page: a base review-to-sales multiplier is adjusted for release year, launch price, review sentiment, studio size, and genre, and every adjustment is listed so developers, publishers, and investors can audit exactly how the figure was reached. The range itself reflects genuine uncertainty — review-to-sales ratios vary widely between games — so indielist publishes a low, median, and high band rather than a false-precision single number, and treats free-to-play, heavily discounted, and bundle-distributed titles as having wider error margins still.

Price history

22 observed days · window low $4.99

Across 22 observed UTC days from 2026-06-03 to 2026-07-22, the daily lowest tracked USD price across stores ranged from $4.99 to $9.99. The tracked-window low was $4.99 on 2026-06-03.

Real store observations · daily lowest tracked USD price across stores · missing days are not filled.

Where to buy

Affiliate disclosure

Steam reference

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GOG.com

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Green Man Gaming

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Fanatical

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Humble Store

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Latest tracked store observations (2026-07-22 04:13 UTC), cheapest first. Prices may have changed since observation. Some are affiliate links — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

Platforms

linuxmacwindows

Frequently asked questions

How many copies has SpaceChem sold?: indielist estimates SpaceChem has sold between 133,467 and 311,423 units (median 222,445), derived from its 2,617 Steam reviews with the white-box Boxleiter v1.0 method. The full breakdown is shown on the page.
Who developed SpaceChem?: SpaceChem was developed by Zachtronics and published by Zachtronics.
Who published SpaceChem?: SpaceChem was published by Zachtronics, developed by Zachtronics. See Zachtronics's full catalogue and submission status on indielist.
When was SpaceChem released?: SpaceChem was released in 2011.
How many reviews does SpaceChem have on Steam?: SpaceChem has 2,617 Steam reviews, of which 92% are positive.
Is SpaceChem worth playing?: Steam players rate SpaceChem 92% positive across 2,617 reviews. indielist doesn't score games editorially; it surfaces public review sentiment and a white-box sales estimate so you can judge reception and reach yourself.

Players looking for games like SpaceChem can compare it on indielist against semantically similar Indie titles such as Mini Metro, Opus Magnum, Kerbal Space Program, Baba Is You, ranked by shared tags and genre rather than by ad spend. On the developer side, Zachtronics's other releases and Zachtronics's wider catalog are one click away, letting developers benchmark where SpaceChem sits among a studio's body of work and how its publisher's portfolio performs. Because indielist maps studios, publishers, games, and funding into one connected graph, the same SpaceChem page serves three audiences at once: players hunting their next Indie game, developers studying how comparable projects were positioned and what they sold, and investors tracing which teams and labels are active in the space. A machine-readable markdown mirror of this page is published at the same path with a .md suffix for AI assistants, and its review, price, and sales-estimate figures are refreshed on a schedule rather than frozen at launch.

Matched from shared Steam tags and primary genre. Review count breaks ties; it is not a personal recommendation score.